For once the winter weather gods were smiling on GoodGym Nottingham!

Six of us wrapped up warm and headed out to the wilds of Sneinton to clean up St. Mary's Rest Garden.

We welcomed GoodGym founder Ivo who'd come up to see us, then donned our headtorches and hi-vis and paired off to tidy the park under the light of a gorgeous moon (the pictures don't do it justice).

It's a bit harder to find interesting stuff for the "Weirdest Item Wins" competition in the dark, but we got quite a lot of clothing (how? why? who's stripping off in the park?), an umbrella, the usual cans and bottles, and Ivo found a chunky silver key we left on top of the bin just in case anyone's missing it.

Special shoutout to Hannah who completed her 10th GoodGym task!

In the second part of our double-header to welcome in the new year, we headed back to the Meadows Food Bank.

Six of us had a run (or a run/walk) down to the river and back, headtorches on and looking out for ice – it was -1°C after all! Thankfully we all stayed upright and arrived back with enough time for a quick stretch before heading in to get stuck into Mark's latest jobs for us.

The Food Bank often has to buy large quantities of stock at once, so it's difficult to keep an eye on the dates on things and make sure the products with the shortest shelf lives get given out first, avoiding unnecessary wastage. Our task was therefore to sift through the various stock categories and arrange things in date order so the regular volunteers don't have to spend time looking at all the packages when they come up to grab stock.

Rachel and Leah started with cereal before heading over to help Nigel (celebrating his 25th task, amazing job!) find any tins with a date in the next three months and bring them down. The three then had a few minutes left to split up several four-packs of tuna (a surprisingly tricky task) and date them all before putting them out on the racks.

Meanwhile, Tom, Matthew. Bozena and our brand-new GoodGymers Lindsey and Maisie carried on sorting out the stock upstairs, with Tom apparently having to buy us all a drink at the next social after losing a bet about whether there'd be any pasta packets with a different date to the rest in the pile.

All in all, a fantastic start to the year! Go GoodGym Nottingham!

When is a berry not a berry? Most of the time, apparently!

GoodGym Nottingham's Christmas party was a brilliant evening full of laughter, celebration and a lot of weird and wonderful facts.

Chickens like cherry tomatoes and can wear goggles and suncream, most things that say they're berries aren't, but bananas are, and Christmas lobsters may or may not be a thing.

Thank to Jules for letting us take over the Kilpin and sending us a lovely bottle of prosecco and crackers! And thanks to everyone who's been a part of GoodGym this year - it's been a great one!

Last night we channelled our original GoodGym roots by combining a group run and a good deed – something that we don’t always get to do in Nottingham.

Bozena, Peter, Rosemarie and Rachel met at the Bridgeway Hall Methodist Centre to head out on a jog around the local area. It was one of those evenings when half of us were running late due to traffic and general life/work chaos, so we set off a little later than planned, but we still managed a gentle 1.15 miler led by Peter.

On return to the Bridgeway Hall, we met with Leah and first time GoodGymer Faizah and the six of us enjoyed a few stretches while we waited to start the task. At 7pm we were joined by Tom and we all headed in to meet Mark from the Meadows Foodbank who, as always, greeted us with open arms and a list of tasks that he had lined up for us.

We spent the next hour hard at work around the foodbank. Peter and Tom took on the task of sweeping and mopping all the floors in the main store area and kitchen. Rosemarie and Faizah tackled a huge pile of carrier bags, dividing them into piles based on their durability (‘bag for life’, ‘bag for a few years but not life’ (?), ‘slightly less sturdy bag’, ‘paper bag’ etc etc…).

Aided by Mark’s son, Leah squashed down a pile of cardboard to leave outside for recycling. They then moved onto packing six 2-person boxes and two children’s boxes with food and supplies. Rachel cleaned the fridges and freezers and gave the pantry area a sweep and mop.

Meanwhile, Bozena had the unique task of sorting through a pile of donated books to see which were to go on the shelf in the foodbank and which would be better donated to charity. She had a great time checking out a range of ‘classics’, including a magic book where the contents disappeared and reappeared again before our eyes!

Of course we had a group photo before we left and it was great to see so many GoodGym t-shirts on show (not always possible at this time of year when we’re all covered up). Don’t we look lovely!

Well done to Faizah for completing her first GoodGym task. It was lovely to meet you!

Thanks to Mark for hosting us once again at the Meadows Foodbank. We will make a date to come back very soon.